Ars Technica has a list of states that limit municipalities from implementing their own broadband. Extreme Tech also talks about Verizon throttling Netflix, even after paying for faster traffic. Level 3 details the issue as well.

ESR himself talked about the corporate interests screwing the customer, yet has little confidence in government's ability to provide solutions. One of the reasons could be due to Tom Wheeler's previous involvement the telecom industry.

Though Google has caused more competition from their Fiber offering, they are also a business that wishes to make money. Furthermore, with the limited amount of Tier 1 providers out there, a grassroots solution may be the best one yet. However, it will cost a lot of money just to get started.